BuzzFeed reaches over 25 million unique visitors each month. No doubt, business publications ogle this number, but I didn’t expect The Wall Street Journal to actually try its hand at BuzzFeed storytelling. Not satisfied with the standard fare that recaps a Department of Labor study on how Americans use their time, the Journal created a slide show …more
Thanks to my participation in the PR Newswire session on visual storytelling, the topic has kept top of mind and prompted a post on sources to inspire visual storytelling. You know how when you buy a new car, the following week it seems like every time you come to a stoplight and look left, you …more
After talking at the PR Newswire event on visual storytelling, it occurred to me that I missed the obvious. People gravitate to the PR profession for two reasons, they like to write or they like to interact with others. In either case, the visual part of communications is an afterthought at best. They perceive areas …more
The value of visual storytelling will only increase over time. You don’t need a research grant from the feds to reach this conclusion. There are only so many words a human brain can process before the overload buzzer goes off (unless you’re Stephen Hawking). Which brings us to the infographic. If a picture is worth …more
Jack and Jill. Romeo and Juliet. Shrek and Fiona. The news release and storytelling. Not exactly a stanine buster figuring out which one doesn’t fit. Don’t blame PR Newswire. Their services are merely the delivery vehicle corporations use to fling their dull announcements – OK, I’m being kind – to the masses. To combat …more
There’s a reason the line “a picture is worth a thousand words” became a cliché. To debate whether it’s 1,000 words or 1,055 words misses the point. A visual pulls the reader into the narrative and enhances the storytelling. Photo sites like Flickr make it easy to add photos into your blog posts. You can …more
Most manufacturing processes do not make for a good story, whether they involve sausages, semiconductors or steel beams. The steps are either gross or way too complex. That’s why I’m impressed with Erik Rhey’s visual storytelling in Fortune and his piece, “Bottles to Bridges.” Understanding the transformation of recycled plastic bottles into the equivalent of …more
I came across a video by David Shiyang Liu that plays off an Ira Glass riff on the creative process. David, who is a filmmaker and director at the Melbourne studio Kick Kick Punch (no Kaboom), married typography with Glass’s verbal narrative to produce the video below. Sure, Ira Glass’s voice by itself gives power …more
I’ve been waiting three years to break out this pie chart. That’s when we created the curriculum for our storytelling workshop. In the early stages of the workshop, we discuss the sheer noise level in the market. I like to pick a random day and aggregate the number of news releases distributed on the various wire …more
